Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Five Faces of May Day in Russia

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 2 – For many years,
analysts focused only on what the authorities announced were the official
slogans of May Day; then, they tended to evaluate the holiday in terms of what
the balance was between those who took part in officially organized marches and
those who were identified as the opposition.

But now May Day has become a holiday
in which the official slogans and the balance between official and opposition
may be less instructive about what is going on in Russia than the ways in which
various groups have used the day to promote their cause and how the authorities
have responded.

·Long-haul
truck drivers in Volgograd who were denied the opportunity to take part in the official
May Day celebration there because of their strike staged their own alternative:
they ran model trucks through the city to make their case against the Plato
system (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/301978/).